Last year, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division collected $166 million in back wages on behalf of 241,000 employees for employer violations of laws enforced by the division.
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal wage-and- hour law, the division recovered a total of $134.2 million, including $119.4 million for overtime violations and $14.8 million for minimum wage violations. What’s more, the division reports, $14.7 million of the total FLSA back-wage recovery resulted from violations of the agency’s new overtime rules.
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The division has also announced that it will launch an initiative in 2006 to measure FLSA compliance in low-wage industries that are most likely to have minimum wage and overtime problems as a result of “off-the-clock” violations. The initiative will consist of a number of directed investigations nationwide and will be preceded by outreach. Some of the low-wage industries targeted by the initiative include day care, restaurants, janitorial services, and temporary help.
Additional Resources:
U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division 2005 Statistics Fact Sheet